The Fragile Veil
by HopeGale
Summary: A year after the events in Mikage-cho, a new incident takes place on the other side of the world in a university situated on an island right next to the sea. Shortly after a mysterious and impenetrable veil traps everyone on the island, demons arise, and a battle for survival commences. Only the power of Persona can overcome this ordeal!
1. The Day Before (6:45 AM - 9:00 PM)

**The Day Before: An Island of Budding Knowledge**

 _\- October 13, 1997, Monday -_

 _\- 6:45 AM -_

One of the nicest things about teaching at a university that was a stone's throw from the coast was that every day, the commute to work was punctuated by the rising of the sun. Now that fall had begun in earnest, there was less and less sunlight to be seen, but Dr. Robert Freeman felt there was something of meaning to be gleaned from this phenomenon. While the constructs of man dictated that sunrise on this day was precisely at 7:30 AM, nature cared little for such ideas as quantized time. The sun would rise and set exactly when it meant to, regardless of whether or not mankind would be around to measure the exact moment at which it did so.

Today would be another ordinary day. He would arrive at his office in a few minutes and prepare for the lectures ahead, teaching his students of philosophy. They would have their usual discussions, trying to meander through the morass that was the depths of human thought, and feel that they had made some substantial self-improvement when in reality all that they had accomplished was a further advancement into hypocrisy and self-righteousness. For these days, it was impossible to find a mind that could dive into that dark abyss that was the human psyche and return without succumbing to the bends that would inevitably result, if they ever returned at all.

Today would be another ordinary day. Tonight, however, was a different story. Yes, tonight would be the beginning of a great experiment, one that would prove the folly of men and women alike when forced to face the demons that resided within them. The foolishness of youth, whether presently embodied in the students that attended South Padre Island University or retained solely within the minds of those that grew older yet refused to grow in understanding, would be put to the test.

 _\- 12:20 PM -_

"So, Lloyd, have you settled in at school yet?" Astrid Ross asked of her brother as the both of them sat down to lunch at the university's dining hall. The two siblings had different hair colors - Astrid had long, brown hair and Lloyd had short blonde hair. Lloyd dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, whereas Astrid wore a dress and sandals.

"Yeah, I'd say so. I've got this psychology test coming up this Friday, and some senior named Carl is apparently in charge of a study group that's meeting later tonight. I don't need that, though. I'll ace this test no problem."

"Oh? As much as I'd like to believe you, dear little brother, your grades have never been your strong suit in school. If there's a group meeting to study for that test, I think you should go. I even know Carl; he's actually aced the courses you're taking right now. He really knows his stuff." Lloyd took a huge bite out of his grilled cheese sandwich and shrugged.

"I dunno, sis. I think I've got better things to do on a Monday night." Astrid narrowed her eyes at him for talking with his mouth full.

"I'm not going to make you go. You're an adult now, Lloyd. No one is going to be hanging over your shoulder telling you to do your homework or study. I learned that pretty quickly when I was a freshman, and it's even more important now that I'm a senior." Lloyd swallowed his food and washed it down with some water.

"I got it, I got it. Gotta say though, now I'm starting to understand why mom always told me to pick up my dirty clothes off the floor. Not only is my roommate kind of uptight about that sort of thing, but it sucks almost tripping over a pair of socks in the morning." Astrid ate some of the rice that she had gotten.

"I'm surprised you're taking that introductory psychology course. It doesn't sound like something you'd be interested in at all. Did your adviser suggest it?" She asked. Lloyd took another large bite of his sandwich, making sure to swallow it before speaking this time.

"Not really. He gave me a list of recommended electives for freshmen, and I asked him which one was the easiest. He kinda gave me a dirty look before pointing out which courses were considered easier by the student body, and psychology was the most interesting one out of those to me. I mean, think about it - that's what the guys on the cop dramas use to profile criminals, right? So far we haven't learned anything like _that_ in class, but I'd say it's still pretty interesting anyway. Like, inside everybody is an ego, id, and superid, and they all correspond to different parts of their mind. That's kinda cool!"

"That's id, ego, and _superego._ Are you sure you don't need to study?" Lloyd blinked before sighing in annoyance at his error.

"Ehhh, fine. Maybe I'll go to that meeting later on or whatever. It's supposed to be at 8 in the psych building... forgot which room it was, though. Doesn't matter. It's not that big of a building. I'll figure it out."

"Oh, boy. Just... don't forget that I'm here for you, brother."

 _\- 2:21 PM -_

A young Hispanic woman walked down the hallway of the student center towards the pay phones, where a couple of people were already using some of them. She moved her wavy brown hair aside and retrieved a couple of quarters from her pocket to put into one of the open phones. Dialing a certain number, she was on the line for just a few seconds before the person on the other side picked up.

"Hello?" The male voice on the other side of the line said.

"James, it's me, Yola!"

"Oh, hey baby! What's going on? Man, I hope you're ready for our date tonight. You and me are going to do something special. Can't tell you what it is right now, though. Bonafide surprise." Yolanda sighed in frustration. She glanced around her, as if there was someone else listening in on her conversation before continuing.

"Yeah, about that... listen, I really hate to do this to you, but we're gonna have to postpone our date until the weekend. I have-"

"What? The weekend?! Seriously? What happened?"

"You know I'm on academic probation, right? The school's threatening to kick me out if I don't start passing my classes. I took this psychology course because everyone said it was real easy, but clearly I'm too stupid to get it, because it's kicking my ass. It's got a test this Friday, and if I don't pass it I'm really gonna be in for it. There's a study group meeting tonight at 8, and I can't miss it. Sorry..." The fact that James didn't immediately respond made Yolanda hold her breath for a moment, scared that he would get mad about it. Instead, his voice sounded more disappointed than anything.

"Aw, shit. Damn it, that sucks. Okay then. Well... how about Friday night, then?" She was relieved to hear that he was understanding about it.

"Perfect. Sounds great."

"There anything I can do to help you with it? I don't know anything about psychology, but maybe I can ask around, find someone who does. You want me to bring you something to eat later?" He asked.

"No, no, I'm fine. Thanks for putting up with me. I know I must drive you crazy." On the other side of the line, James laughed.

"You certainly do, but that's what I love about you. Did you wanna talk about anything else?"

"No. I'm going to start heading to my next class now. We'll talk later."

"You got it, Yola. Catch you on the flip side."

"See you later. Bye."

 _\- 4:33 PM -_

To Carl Smith, nothing rounded off a day of classes better than heading to the gym and working out. Today was running day, and so that meant running several miles on a treadmill while watching whatever was on TV. There were several screens in his field of view, ranging from movies to talk shows to the weather channel. He looked down at the treadmill to check how far he had progressed since beginning his workout about an hour ago: 7.35 miles.

 _That's good. Could be better._

The noise in the gym made trying to legitimately watch anything on TV a futile effort without captions. Carl hadn't bothered to bring his portable CD player with him today, as he was growing weary of the music collection he had. He made a mental note to himself to visit a music store later this week to see if there was anything good that he could add to his collection.

"The tropics are mostly quiet, but we're watching the development of this tropical wave..." The captions appearing on the TV playing the weather channel read. This year had been very good for hurricanes, he noted. Only Hurricane Danny had done any significant damage to the U.S., and even then it was only a Category 1 storm. It was a curious occurrence that not a single named storm had passed directly through Corpus Christi since Hurricane Celia in 1970 - those with superstitious inclinations might even say someone had cast a spell on the Sparkling City by the Bay, protecting it from such storms.

 _As lovely as it is to have a school that's so close to the sea, I can't help but think that it wouldn't survive a hurricane slamming into it. Well, no. That would be giving the people who built this place no credit whatsoever. I'm sure they had that in mind when they decided to establish a school here and have taken every possible precaution to make sure this place can withstand the conditions of a storm. And while I'm not one to believe in superstition, it certainly seems like this place is less than likely to see the wrath of a hurricane anytime soon._

He looked back down at the treadmill, reminding himself to pace his breathing and maintain focus. Another ten minutes or so and he would head back to his dorm to rest, eat, and prepare for the Psychology 2301 study group at eight o'clock tonight. His fellow students were counting on him, after all.

 _\- 6:14 PM -_

Dinner for Jennifer Perez and Marvin O'Keefe consisted of a combination of quesadillas, sliced chicken, assorted vegetables, and caffeine-free soda. The two of them sat down across from each other and began to talk to each other about their day.

"I'm glad I decided to put off filling this elective slot until now. That psychology course is a much-needed breather compared to all my math classes. I'm going to go to that study group tonight just to feel good about how easy it is." Jennifer said. She had her hair in a ponytail and wore dangling silver earrings along with a sea-green t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

"No kidding it's easy. My programming courses have been keeping me super busy. You had the right idea, Jenny. Wonder if we'll be able to do the same thing next year." Marvin said. He kept his ginger hair trimmed very short in the interest of not having to do any upkeep on it whatsoever, and was always wearing some combination of a shirt, shorts, and sandals. Completing his ensemble was a pair of thin-rimmed brown glasses, selected to try and not look _too much_ like someone who spent hours on end in the engineering building.

"Maybe. You'll have to check your degree plan and see what you still need. I really don't want one of us to have to graduate before the other if we can help it."

"It's not like we couldn't still keep in touch." Marvin said, taking a bite out of a quesadilla.

"Yeah, but think about it Marv. How often do you talk to anyone we went to high school with?" She said. He hesitated to respond, offering a half-hearted shrug before saying,

"Maybe... once a year? Something like that? I'm always really busy, so even the people that go here from our school I don't talk to all that often either."

"Well, part of that is just how you live. Nothing wrong with that, I'm just saying that if we weren't going to the same school, we wouldn't talk more than once a week, at the most. We'd be too busy living our own lives to keep our friendship up. I don't want that to happen to us when we graduate from here, either. I know we still both have a year to go, but the commencement date will be here before you know it." Marvin shook his head, cracking a smile.

"I do know one thing's for certain. You are never going to change. You've dragged me by the wrist ever since we were in the playpen, and I wouldn't be surprised if you tried to take me to the grave." Jennifer pursed her lips and pouted exaggeratedly, before cracking up in laughter.

"Oh, come on now. You know they don't bury bodies in the same exact spot. I'll settle for at least being buried in the same graveyard, how's that sound?" Marvin's smile widened.

"That sounds alright to me."

 _\- 7:58 PM -_

Carl looked out from his place at the podium to see who had decided to come to the study group. It was a smaller group than he had hoped for - only about ten individuals had showed up. There _was_ going to be another meeting on Wednesday, so he surmised that more people would probably show up then to get in their last-minute studying. It was also only the first exam, and the course was known for being relatively easy compared to other intro-level courses, so those were likely factors in the low attendance as well.

He took a look at each of the people who had come. Most of them appeared to be freshmen, at least from what he could tell. There was a pair of individuals in the back that looked older, likely juniors or seniors filling out their elective slot with something easier than their core classes. Carl stacked his notes together, cleared his throat, and began to speak.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Carl, and I'll be leading the review tonight. First, allow me to go over what Professor Martin has stated will be on the upcoming exam..." He took a piece of chalk and wrote down the topics on the chalkboard behind him. Once he was done, he began to go over the topics on the list, answering a few questions that came up from some of the people in the room. Most of them came from one of the older students, a Hispanic girl with a ponytail who sat next to a guy with very short ginger hair. The others varied in their levels of attention, with a blonde-haired guy standing out in particular because he kept checking his watch as if he had somewhere else to be. That kind of thing was always annoying to him - why even be here if you clearly wanted to be somewhere else?

 _\- 8:55 PM -_

"...and if there are no more questions, I think we're done here. There will be another session just like this one on Wednesday at the same time and place, although I'll just be going over the exact same things I did tonight." Carl said, addressing the group before him.

After a moment of silence, he stacked up his notes and put them in a folder as the people began to gather their things and leave. The lights then began to flicker, making everyone pause for a moment before the lights went out entirely, blanketing the room in darkness.

"Ugh, really? Who blew a fuse?" Lloyd said, trying to feel around for the door. He felt something distinctly different from a door instead.

"That is _not_ the door! Don't touch me!" Yolanda shouted.

"I found it! It won't open!" Jennifer said, trying to push open the door and finding that it refused to budge, as if someone had locked it.

"Calm down, everyone! I've got a flashlight." Carl said, reaching down to where he had placed his backpack to try and get his flashlight. As he did so, a bolt blasted from the lights, hitting him in the back and knocking him out. The others noticed the brief flash of illumination and saw that Carl had gone down.

"What was that?!" Lloyd said, trying to make his way across the room to get to Carl. Before he could get close enough to him, however, another bolt exploded from the lights and hit him in the chest, knocking him flat on the ground.

"What the hell is going on? Get me out of here this _instant!_ " Yolanda shouted, pushing her way to the door. She intended to ram her way through it, but was stopped in the middle of her momentum by another electrical bolt, causing her limp body to fly against the door in vain. Jennifer and Marvin couldn't even say another word before they saw the lights explode in a brilliant white flash, sending lightning bolts outwards that hit everyone else, dropping them all to the floor.

* * *

 **Original upload date: November 3, 2016**

 **A/N: I've been sitting on this idea for several months; I wanted to do a story in the style of Persona 1 and somewhere along the way I got the idea to use some elements of the Devil Survivor games, leading to what you see before you. This story takes place in the same universe as _In the Eye of the Beholder,_ but the only connection between the two (besides Philemon, Igor, the Velvet Room, etc.) will be a single character that's already been introduced in this opening chapter.**

 **This is my project for NaNoWriMo 2016, so if everything goes as planned you will see at least 50,000 words on this story by the end of the month. Likely more, as these notes and this site's interesting way of parsing line separators will inflate the count a little bit. It probably won't be finished in 50k, but this story won't be even half as long as _Beholder_ is at the time of this posting. At least, that's the plan. We'll see how it turns out.**


	2. The Day Before (9:00 PM - 11:45 PM)

_\- Monday -_

 _\- 9:01 PM -_

Lloyd opened his eyes to find that he was in a very different place than the classroom that he had been in just a moment ago. Before him was a checkered floor with the symbol of a butterfly in the center, with pillars holding up a tall ceiling. He looked around and saw that he was alone, standing on a circular platform only a few yards wide in either direction - beyond that was a murky black void. He turned around and was surprised to see a man in a coat with the color of autumn leaves, oranges and yellows and reds all blending together in a manner that almost shined. He wore a white mask with the shape and colors of a monarch butterfly around his brown eyes, and his hair was brown and tied in a ponytail.

"Welcome. I am Philemon, a dweller of the realm between consciousness and unconsciousness. Can you tell me your name?" Lloyd blinked, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"Lloyd. Lloyd Ross." He sputtered out, unsure of why he gave his full name. Philemon closed his eyes as he spoke.

"Yes. Lloyd. You were able to remember your name. That's good. I had hoped you would."

"What is this place? Am I dead?" Lloyd asked. Philemon opened his eyes and looked straight at Lloyd.

"No, I have called you and several others to the realm of the unconscious because I have sensed that a terrible tragedy is about to befall you, one engineered by the shadow of humanity. Tomorrow morning, you will come face to face with the demons that once lurked within the unconscious realm, unable to leave the confines of your university until you find a way to dispel the veil that now surrounds it. In order to do this, I shall grant you the power of Persona - the power to bring forth the gods and demons within you."

Philemon materialized a card floating in his hand and handed it to Lloyd. He took it and saw that it was a tarot card, with the words "The Magician" at the bottom and the number 1 at the the top. In the center was a young man clad in white wielding a spear, with long black hair. The name Cu Chulainn came to Lloyd's mind as he touched the card.

"Whoa. This is _cool._ " The card evaporated into sparkling particles shortly after he touched it, being absorbed into his body.

"We will meet again soon." Philemon said before Lloyd felt the entire area receding from him back into the darkness of the void.

 _\- 9:03 PM -_

Lloyd woke up on the floor, exactly where he remembered he was before being hit by the energy bolts coming from the ceiling. He stood up and noticed that everyone else in the room seemed to be waking up at the same time. The Hispanic girl that he had bumped into after the lights went out was rubbing her head.

"Damn it! What _was that?_ " Yolanda grumbled, looking around at the others.

"Is everyone okay? I'm surprised we're even able to stand..." Carl said, stretching his arms and legs to make sure they were still functioning.

"Did you guys meet that Philemon guy while you were out like I did?" Lloyd asked to the group. There was an awkward silence over the room for a few seconds as everyone exchanged glances before Jennifer decided to speak.

"You met him too? Did _all of us_ meet the man with the autumn-colored coat? Asked for your name, gave you a card he called a Persona?" A mixture of nods and verbal acknowledgments confirmed that yes, all eleven people in the room had met Philemon while conscious and received a Persona. Carl put his things in his backpack and made for the door.

"Philemon said something about a veil covering the university and demons spawning on the grounds. We need to see if what he was telling us is right."

"Screw that, man! I'm getting myself the hell out of here." One of the other students said, before bursting through the previously-locked door. Yolanda and most of the other students followed him out, leaving Jennifer, Marvin, Lloyd, and Carl standing inside.

"Well, if that veil really is impassable, they're not going to get very far. You three - do you live on campus or off?" Carl asked.

"I'm on-campus, in Alexander." Lloyd said.

"We're in Cole." Jennifer said for both her and Marvin.

"I see. I'm in Ellis. As soon as the off-campus people figure out that they can't leave, we're going to have a lot of extra people sleeping in the dorms for a while. You all should return to your dorms and prepare for that. I'm going to go contact the university police and let them know about the situation." Carl said, leaving the room.

"Extra people... Omar's not gonna like _that._ I guess I better go back and break the news to him before anyone else does." Lloyd said. He went to gather his things and left for his dorm. Marvin looked to Jennifer and said to her,

"If I remember correctly... Philemon said Personas were the 'gods and demons within us'. Does that mean we're basically commanding demons to fight other demons?" She sighed, shaking her head. Normally she would have dismissed what had just happened as some kind of freak accident, but there was no way eleven different people ended up having the same dream by coincidence.

"I don't know. We need to go and hunker down before things start to get crazy. Your single is about to turn into a triple, Marv. Get used to it."

 _\- 9:12 PM -_

"They weren't kidding..." Yolanda muttered to herself as she and a large group of increasingly angry students stood one of the streets leading out of the university. There was a line of cars backed up all the way into the parking lots, unable to move from their spots. At the front of the line were a series of crashed cars, four of them crumpled against each other. As Philemon had said, there was indeed an impenetrable veil along the entire border of the university, completely transparent until something came in contact with it, at which it would emanate a rose-colored glow around the point of contact.

"What's happened? Why is this here?" A brown-haired girl wearing a dress and sandals said from next to her, having abandoned her car a few yards down the road. Something about her face looked familiar to Yolanda, and she was reminded of the blonde guy from the study group that wasn't paying attention most of the hour. The group of students began to converse amongst themselves as to what was going on as the university police approached the scene, trying to figure out how they were going to retrieve the people trapped inside the cars without any outside help. On the other side of the veil, a couple of cars had also crashed, though there wasn't a large pileup as there was on the inside.

"Hey, you. What's your name?" Yolanda asked of the girl standing next to her. She flinched at the sudden question, and blinked for a moment before responding.

"Astrid."

"You don't happen to have a brother that goes here, do you?"

"Yes, I do! You know Lloyd?" Yolanda looked for a moment at the scene and saw that whoever was at the front of the pileup was still trapped inside, bloody and unable to move. There were people beginning to congregate outside the veil from the cars on that side, but after watching the people inside try to get their attention, it was apparent that something was preventing the people outside from seeing inside.

"I can't watch this." Yolanda began walking away from the scene at a brisk pace, causing Astrid to almost have to run to catch up with her.

"Yeah, I know your brother. He was in a study group I was just in. Shit! What are we supposed to do now? Where the hell are we going to sleep, in the library? That place is going to be packed full of people! Ugh! My boyfriend was supposed to pick me up in a few minutes, and now I'm _stuck here!_ " She said, her tone a mixture of anger, annoyance, and worry.

"Wait! My brother lives on campus. I'm sure if we explain things to him and his roommate, they'll let us stay with them. There's enough room in there for four people - it'll be tight, but it's better than having to stay in the library." Astrid explained, looking in the direction of the dorms. Yolanda immediately altered course and headed that way, beckoning Astrid to come along.

"Fine. You lead me to where he is. Oh, and by the way..." She trailed off.

"What is it?"

"Thanks."

 _\- 9:25 PM -_

"I can't believe this is happening." Omar Sanchez spoke from atop his bed as he covered his face with his hands, frustrated beyond words at the intrusion of Lloyd's sister and some wavy-haired sophomore that had invited herself over. They had gone on about some ridiculous barrier surrounding the university, which meant that all the off-campus people needed a place to sleep since they couldn't leave.

"Listen, if you don't believe me, you can go out and see for yourself. I'm not any happier about this than you are." Yolanda said, crossing her arms on one of the chairs in the room. Astrid sighed, wondering what was going to happen to her car. She had left it in the line of cars that were stuck trying to get out of the university, and who knows how long it would take for the police to guide all the functioning cars back to the parking lots they came from.

"This goes against so many university regulations..." Omar muttered, rolling towards the wall that his bed was up against.

"Sorry, man! I'm not gonna let my sister sleep in the library when there's space for her here!" Lloyd said from atop his own bed on the other side of the room.

"And I don't want to have to deal with all the smells that you get from having so many people in one place. You two don't have any extra pillows or anything?" Yolanda asked.

"No." Omar replied.

"For what it's worth, there are showers in the gym... but you're certainly right about that being a problem, Yolanda." Astrid shuddered a bit at the thought. She looked at the girl she had met just a few minutes ago and realized something very important.

"Unfortunately, we don't have much of a solution for not having enough clothes to wear. I hope they figure out a way to get past that barrier soon."

"You could wear some of my shirts, sis. The electricity still works, so we'll still be able to wash and dry our clothes." Lloyd offered.

"That' s great, but unless you happen to have a pack of unopened panties in one of those drawers of yours, it doesn't get rid of the whole problem." Yolanda said, pointing at the drawers Lloyd had next to his bed.

"Also, I don't know how wrapped up the police are in trying to figure out what's going on, but I wouldn't be surprised if all the clothes at the student store are gone by the end of tomorrow if that veil isn't gone. There's also going to be exactly zero tampons there by then, too. Not that it's gonna bother me right away, but I guarantee you the women's restrooms are gonna be increasingly nasty the longer we're stuck here."

"Did you _have_ to put that image in my head? That's disgusting!" Omar complained, facepalming.

"What? That's a real concern!" Yolanda shot back, standing up off of the chair. Astrid got between the both of them.

"Enough, you two. Like it or not, we're going to all be living in the same room for a while, so we need to learn to at least tolerate each other. Omar, I'm sorry that this is happening - but you need to understand that we need to look out for each other at a time like this. Yolanda, this _is_ still their home away from home, so we should treat it with respect."

"Whatever. I'm tired." Omar said, rolling over such that he faced the wall.

"Fine." Yolanda said, sitting down in her chair again.

 _\- 9:37 PM -_

Marvin had grown accustomed to living alone in his single room. It was smaller than a room that fit two people, but as it was simply a normal room cut in half, it was perfectly capable of fitting another person inside of it. His resident adviser had come by a few minutes ago and dropped off a sophomore named Jordan, saying that the entire on-campus community was trying to accommodate as many stranded off-campus students as possible. He and Jordan had exchanged brief introductions before his visitor sat down in the only chair in the room, leaving Marvin to sit on his own bed.

"Sorry for having to do this to you, man. I can tell you're the kind that really likes his privacy." Jordan said. He was a brunette and shorter than Marvin by several inches, and looked like he had just finished several miles of running, wearing a solid white t-shirt, black mesh shorts, and gray tennis shoes.

"It's okay. It wouldn't feel right leaving someone out in the cold like that." Jordan crossed his legs and whistled.

"Yeah, I had just finished my run and was going to go back to my car to leave, but then I saw all the cars backed up and wondered what was going on. I hear about this veil that's trapped everybody in here and I had to go see for myself since it sounded like the most ridiculous thing ever, so I ran over towards the eastern exit of campus. Seeing is believing, that's for sure. That veil is totally invisible until someone touches it, then it flashes this salmon-pink light to show everyone that yeah, it's real."

"I see. Where do you think it's come from?" Marvin asked. Jordan threw up his hands and shook his head.

"Man, your guess is as good as mine. Aliens? Government conspiracy? I'd probably lean more towards aliens, because I don't think the government has this kind of technology. Even if they did, why would they pick _here,_ of all places? Why test it on people that have no idea that it's happening? But seriously, I have no clue."

"Aliens, huh... that's not what I heard." Marvin said, trying to gauge Jordan's interest. Since the veil Philemon mentioned turned out to be real, then the demons he talked about were almost certainly real as well. If they hadn't appeared now, they'd certainly appear by tomorrow, shutting down any disbelief in them.

"Oh? What do you mean? Does someone here actually know what's going on?" Jordan asked, curious. Marvin figured that if Jordan would actually believe the truth before seeing it for himself, that he'd be more likely to be of assistance later on.

"Well, you didn't hear it from me, but... I heard that someone did a summoning ritual of some kind. They... placed the veil over the school and are trying to summon demons here. It doesn't look like they're appeared yet, but the veil is here, so..." Jordan reared back in the chair, giving Marvin a look that was a cross between scared, incredulous, and excited.

"Dude. Seriously? Demons?" He said. Marvin thought he was about to take the news extremely poorly, but then Jordan stood up from the chair and said,

"That reminds me of something. Something weird my philosophy professor was talking about today. He's always been kind of a snob, but today he seemed really gung-ho about the lesson. He was all going on about how understanding the truths of life is really difficult, and how nobody could possibly hope to know them all without going crazy. I kinda joked to myself that maybe he was the crazy one, like something had possessed him that day and was driving him insane... but maybe that wasn't as much of a joke as I thought!" Marvin took a deep nasal breath, before taking off his glasses and cleaning them before putting them back on.

"Who's your philosophy professor?" He asked Jordan.

"His name's Dr. Freeman. I don't even know if he'd be on campus this late, though. He might not even be stuck here like the rest of us, but I guess that might not make a difference if he's the one behind it." Jordan said, turning to the blinds in front of Marvin's window. He peeked through them and saw that there were still people walking around, with the occasional university policeman helping to guide people to places they could stay. There certainly weren't any demons about, at least not that he could see.

"Hey, turn on the TV. I bet the university channel has some sort of emergency message." Jordan said, still looking out from Marvin's third floor room.

 _\- 9:45 PM -_

"All attempts to call outside of the university have failed, but all landline and radio communication within the boundaries of the invisible barrier are still functional. While the barrier is transparent to us inside, it has become clear based on impeded traffic between the city and the rest of Padre Island that those outside the barrier cannot see within it, as all attempts to communicate with people on the other side have failed. We advise that anyone who has been stranded on campus as a result of the barrier remain patient as we figure out a way to deal with this..." A middle-aged woman in a lab coat identified by the television as Dr. Angela Rodriguez, professor of physics, spoke before the head of the university police stepped in.

"This doesn't feel real." Jennifer said, watching as she and the two girls alongside her were watching the broadcast. The dorm she was in was smaller than the others, making fitting in two extra people per room a fire hazard. As such, only one other girl now occupied the room that was normally the abode of two girls.

"How are they going to get through it? There were cars going at full speed at it and it didn't even scratch it. What could we possibly have on campus that could break through something like that?" Jennifer's roommate, Mai, asked while looking around for the remote.

"What kind of Asian are you?" The other girl asked Mai. Both she and Jennifer looked over at her, briefly stunned at the suddenness of the question. The girl they had put with her was named Delilah, and she had been mostly quiet since arriving in their room. She wore a black shirt that only covered one shoulder, and had her curly hair tied back.

"I'm... Vietnamese." Mai responded, still surprised. Jennifer's surprise turned to annoyance, as she narrowed her eyes at Delilah and said,

"Where did that come from?" Delilah snorted at Jennifer.

"What? I was curious. You two have had your eyes glued to that set and it's making the atmosphere really awkward. And besides, would you rather have me assume Mai is Chinese like someone stupid? It's not like you or I know exactly which Hispanic or African indigenous tribe we came from."

"It's not like we're watching some sitcom. Look, we can't watch anything else on TV." Jennifer said, reaching for the remote at the edge of her table and flipping through channels. Every single one of them came up with static except for the university-owned one and for some reason, the weather channel.

"Well, at least we have the weather channel... for some reason." Mai pointed out. Delilah shrugged.

"It's not like I don't know what just happened. That's why I'm here, remember? I just think you two are giving that crap the wrong kind of attention. It's a barrier that no one understands and that isn't gonna go away until somebody figures out how to make it go away. Seriously, if it wasn't for the police herding people into dorms and common buildings, I'd be out there right now trying to find some answers, not huddled around a TV going, 'Oh no, what ever will we doooo?'" Jennifer's annoyance only grew as Delilah spoke more words.

"You know, I don't disagree with that. We _do_ need some answers, but you're seriously missing something important here. This isn't _natural!_ Someone or some _thing_ is behind this! People have a right to be worried!" She said, making Delilah's eyes roll.

"Yeah, okay. Go for it. Worry all you want. But I'm not gonna sit here and wait around for someone else to figure it out. First thing tomorrow morning, I'm going out and finding myself some answers. That means I need my beauty sleep, and since there's only two beds here and I'm not spooning with either of y'all, I need to get a headstart on it. Keep the TV on all night, I don't care, just don't wake me up. Mai, toss me one of your pillows. I'll sleep at your table." Delilah said, bringing her chair up to Mai's table. Mai obliged the request, giving her one of her four pillows to rest her head on. Delilah undid her hair tie and placed the tie in her pocket, before putting her head down and facing away from the other girls.

"Good night, you two."

 _\- 11:45 PM -_

"So, it begins in earnest tomorrow." Dr. Freeman spoke aloud, looking out on the university from his office in the humanities building. The students and remaining faculty and staff had all been corralled into dorms or wherever the police could put them. He questioned why he could not have placed the veil during the day instead of at night when a good portion of the student body was away, but the power he had been given demanded that he wait until the proper time in order to be used.

"Why, yes. That it does." A male voice spoke from behind him in the doorway to his office, cloaked in shadows. Dr. Freeman turned around to face the man and said,

"What will the plan be henceforth? Surely I am not simply going to sit around and _wait_ for these children to put together the puzzle pieces." The shadowy man chuckled, retrieving a cigar and a lighter from his jacket pocket. He lit the cigar and took a puff of it, letting smoke fill the room.

"Of course not. You will have plenty of opportunities to dangle the carrot in front of them; however, tonight we must attend to more important matters. Behold." He took a step forward and opened a portal behind him leading into the darkness. Dr. Freeman nodded in acknowledgment, trying to hide his surprise at the mysterious man being able to effortlessly open a portal.

"Might I ask what we shall be doing in there?" He said. The shadowy man took another puff from his cigar before chuckling again.

"All will be explained once you step through the door. Come. We have work to do." He said, flicking the cigar into the darkness of the portal. Dr. Freeman frowned at the waste of a perfectly good cigar and followed him in.

* * *

 **Original upload date: November 10, 2016**

 **A/N: I'm quite behind on my NaNo word count, but that's okay. Still have three more weeks to get up to speed. More frequent updates incoming!**


	3. The 1st Day (6:00 AM - 9:30 AM)

**The 1st Day: The Power of Persona**

 _\- October 14, 1997, Tuesday -_

 _\- 6:07 AM -_

Delilah woke up and saw that the TV had been turned off at some point while she was asleep. She noticed that both of the other girls were still resting, and pushed her chair back across the floor as she stood. The scraping noise disturbed the both of them, causing Jennifer to open her eyes and watch Delilah reach for the door. Mai mumbled something in her sleep before turning over to face the wall.

"You... weren't kidding, were you..." She murmured, watching the other girl open the door and leave while the sun had yet to rise. She blinked and put her head back down for a few minutes, and just as she was about to allow sleep to claim her once more, Philemon's warning last night kickstarted her awake.

"Wait! It's dangerous outside!" She said, getting out of bed and looking around for a pair of shoes to put on. Mai was awakened by her outburst, causing her to sit up in her bed and rub her eyes.

"Huh? Dangerous? What's going on?" Jennifer located a pair of tennis shoes and put them on, for once not caring that she was going to go outside in her pajamas without having brushed her hair at all.

"I'll tell you later! Just stay inside!" Jennifer said before leaving the room. She ran through the passageways of Cole Hall to the outside, where she looked around to see where Delilah had gone. There was no motion that she could see until something flickered at the edge of her vision. She looked over to see a tree swaying in the wind, at least until she realized that the air was still. The silence of the morning was broken by the snapping of one of the tree's branches, which fell to the ground as a pair of figures began to move away from it. One of them was wearing a black shirt, backing away from a blob that jiggled towards them.

"Delilah!" Jennifer shouted, running towards her. Delilah glanced over at her before turning her attention back to the living blob with eyes, that made squishing noises as it tried to lunge at her.

"What the hell are you? Get away from me!" She said, dodging the attack and kicking at the blob in retaliation. Her blow glanced off of it, simply making it squish even more. Jennifer arrived next to her and took in the appearance of the monster before them. Something inside her reacted to its presence, and suddenly she knew its name: Slime.

"It's a demon! Delilah, you need to get back to the dorm! The demons have appeared! You can't fight them!" Delilah scoffed at her before attempting to attack the Slime with another kick, which was just as useless as the last one. She growled before looking around to see that there were more strange creatures beginning to appear in the distance.

"Demons, huh? Who was the idiot that played with a Ouija board last night? We're gonna have to find them and kick their ass later..."

Jennifer wondered just exactly how she was supposed to use the power Philemon gave her. She searched her soul and found that her other self, her Persona, was waiting within, ready to be unleashed. Her name came to her in an instant, and she shouted it to the heavens as she raised an arm:

"Arianrhod!" A wind blew from underneath her as a blue-white ring of light expanded outwards from her. Before her eyes, a woman with long blonde hair and clad in white armor flashed into existence. Without speaking another word, she leapt forward and swung her sword at the Slime, cleaving it in two. The pieces of the demon faded away into nothing and Arianrhod sheathed her sword, looking back at Jennifer with a smile before disappearing. Delilah was aghast at the turn of events, clenching her fists before looking around and seeing that the demons had noticed Jennifer instantly kill one of them and were closing in on them.

"We have to go!" Jennifer said, beginning to back away from the demons.

"Damn it, fine! Weren't kidding about it, were you..." Delilah grumbled. The two of them ran back to the dorm, where the university police had all gathered in one spot near the entrance and communicating with each other and with their radios. One of the officers noticed them coming and approached them.

"Hey! You shouldn't be outside right now!"

"Yeah, I know!" Delilah said before going inside Cole Hall. Jennifer stayed behind.

"Demons have started appearing on campus. I don't think they can be hurt by conventional weapons! You need a Persona to fight them." The officer was about to ask her what she was talking about when she turned around and called out Arianrhod's name again. Her Persona came forth in the same burst of light and wind, drawing the attention of all the nearby officers.

"Like this! If you can't summon a Persona, you can't hurt the demons! You guys have to find the other people that have them and bring them here!"

 _\- 7:13 AM -_

Carl and his roommates woke up to the sound of someone banging on their door, which prompted Carl to get up from his bed and look through the peephole to see a police officer on the other side.

"...the hell, man? Who's banging on the door this early in the morning?" His original roommate, Jack, groaned as he watched Carl step back from the door.

"Police." He said, opening the door. The other two people in the room - a guy who had elected to sleep on a blanket on the floor and a girl who was sleeping at Carl's table - sat up and watched what was happening.

"What's going on, officer?" Carl asked. The other occupants of the room quickly wiped the sleepiness from their eyes as they realized there was actually a police officer at their door.

"We're looking for Carl Smith. We were told that he lives here." The officer said.

"That's me. What did you need?" Carl responded.

"I'm going to need to speak with you outside, privately." Carl nodded. He looked back to the others in the room and said,

"Don't worry. I'm not in trouble or anything." He stepped outside and let the door close behind him. The police officer explained to him that someone named Jennifer Perez had encountered creatures identified as demons and was confirmed to have had the only means of dealing with them: the summoning of personally-controlled benevolent demons, or Personas, to fight them off. She had given the names of everyone she remembered meeting that had also received the same power, and had also said that there were precisely eleven individuals in total.

"Do you have any information that could help us identify the other Persona-users? We were told you were leading a review session at the time the incident occurred." The officer said. Carl looked back to the door and said,

"I had everyone that attended sign their names on a sheet. It's normally just supposed to tell the professors how many people show up to the sessions. I'll get it for you."

"Please do. I'll be waiting right here." The officer said. Carl went back into his dorm room and was immediately the focus of the other three people in the room.

"What's going on? Have the demons showed up like you said they would?" Jack asked. Carl reached for his backpack and pulled out the folder with the sign-in sheet from last night's review session.

"Yes. The police cannot do anything about them; only those who can wield a Persona are able to even scratch them. Remember how I told you all that there were ten other people in the room with me that got Personas? The police are trying to find them all, ostensibly so that we can be assembled as a fighting force to stave off demons." He retrieved the sign-in sheet and verified that there were indeed eleven names on it.

"So what are the rest of us without them supposed to do? How are we going to eat? How are people supposed to move around campus if there are demons everywhere and only a handful of students can even fight back?" The girl asked, trying to straighten out her long brown hair with her hands. Carl let out a breath and looked her in the eyes.

"Rae, I don't know. The last thing I remember Philemon saying to us was that he would see us again soon. Hopefully the next time we see him he'll have a solution. He was the one that gave me and the ten others this power; I doubt he's just going to leave it all up to us. I _hope_ he doesn't leave it solely up to us, because half of that group ran out of the room the moment they got the chance."

 _\- 8:00 AM -_

Lloyd and Yolanda watched from Lloyd's dorm room on the third floor as a mass of students made their way to the dining hall. The school was structured such that five of the main dorms - Alexander, Beatrice, Cole, Davis, and Ellis - were arranged in a pentagon around the dining hall. For some reason, the demons avoided trying to attack the dorms, giving up on anyone that crossed some invisible line several yards away from the buildings. This allowed anyone inside these five dorms to freely come and go to the dining hall, but as it was the only operating cafeteria on campus thanks to the veil preventing all the staff that wasn't already on campus from showing up, there was still the matter of getting the _rest_ of the people across campus over to it safely.

"We gotta get going. Carl's waiting for us." Lloyd said, beginning to make his way to the stairs. Yolanda followed behind him, annoyed that she had to be one of the ones fighting.

"Had to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I swear. If I hadn't decided to go to that damn study group, I would've left here for supper and none of this would be my problem." Yolanda said, crossing her arms as she went down the stairs with Lloyd. Unfortunately for her, neither Lloyd nor Omar had any clothes that fit her, making her keep a note to herself to bother all the other girls in this building to see if they had any clean clothes. As he had said before, at least the electricity and the laundry rooms were still working.

"It's not like you knew this was gonna happen. Come on, at least you can _do something_ about it, right?" Lloyd asked. Yolanda sighed.

"Yeah, I guess. But why did that Philemon guy pick just us? What, does he expect some random group of students to protect everybody here? We're not an army! We don't even know how powerful the demons really are..." She said as the two of them made their way to the rendezvous point at the south end of Ellis, where there was a path leading to the other five dorms on campus. At that point, they met up with some familiar faces: Jennifer, Marvin, and Carl, along with a couple of police officers.

The police officers explained the situation: the second set of dorms - Flores, Gina, Hughes, Iliana, and Jones - were farther apart from each other than the set of dorms immediately surrounding the dining hall. While the safety zone seemed to enclose all five of the secondary dorms, there was at least a quarter mile between them and the safety zone of the primary dorms, an area in which the demons roamed freely and attacked people without hesitation.

"We have... seen the results of those who attempt to fight the demons without the aid of a Persona. Even something as seemingly weak as a Slime is capable of inflicting significant injury in a single blow, to say nothing of the other demons that look like ghosts or fairies and have much more mobility. In addition, it appears that several buildings on campus have been altered somehow - we have come across multiple instances of people that were in buildings we thought were safe being forced out approximately two hours ago, where they were attacked and killed by demons." The police officer explaining the situation to them then gestured to the space between the primary and secondary dorms.

"However, the presence of a Persona-user deters demons from attacking unprotected individuals. That's where you all come in. Between the eleven of you, we feel we should be able to establish safe passage for the rest of those trapped on campus to and from the dining hall."

"I see. I guess we have Jennifer to thank for this knowledge. You were the first one of us to get up and fight the demons yourself." Carl said.

"Honestly, it was because of Delilah that all of this happened when it did. She said she was going to get up early and try and find some answers on her own, but once I remembered what Philemon told us about the demons, I couldn't let her be killed. Now it's our job to make sure the rest of our classmates are safe." Jennifer had lost track of Delilah once the two of them separated; it was certain that she was probably in the dining hall right now, but she hadn't been able to find her once she returned to her dorm to properly get dressed. Yolanda counted the number of Persona-users and then said,

"There are five of us here and five dorms we have to take care of... so let me guess, you want to assign each one of us a dorm and protect the people as we bring them all here at once, right?" The police officer shook his head.

"There are at least a hundred people within each dorm. I believe that trying to bring that many people here at once would be unsafe with only five of you to guard them. Instead, I propose that the five of you bring them here one dorm at a time. There are already officers on the other side; I will radio them and explain our plan of action so that they will begin gathering the students that wish to go to the dining hall. You will do each dorm in alphabetical order." The group acknowledged the officer's instructions and began to move out, keeping close together.

"I really hope we're not gonna get stuck ferrying people around all day. Philemon said he was going to talk to us again, right? We are gonna need way more Persona-users than just _eleven_ if we want to actually figure out how to get out of here." Yolanda said.

"I agree. Even if we are given a solution as to how to escape this conundrum, the fact remains that people need to eat. I have a feeling whoever placed this veil on our school will not let us leave without a fight, so the more of us there are that can fight back, the better." Carl said. As the group continued to walk, a group of figures materialized into existence in front of them - two Slimes, a fairy-like creature, and a purple ghost with legs.

"Demons! Let's get 'em!" Lloyd said, immediately calling on his Persona. Wind and light preceded the appearance of Cu Chulainn, who thrust his spear into the nearest Slime, destroying it in a single blow.

"Wait! H-hold on a sec!" The other Slime said, jiggling in fear. The rest of the group stopped for a moment, stunned at the fact that the demon had just spoken to them. The other demons turned their attention to the Slime and moved out of the way, as if they knew what was about to happen and gave the Slime some space.

"What? You can _talk?!_ " Lloyd exclaimed. He took a step forward and made the Slime move back a little.

"Yes! Of course we demons can talk! Listen, don't kill me! I'll tell the other Slimes to leave you guys alone!" The Slime responded. Lloyd scratched his head and pointed to the other demons in the background, which were patiently waiting.

"Okay... what about these other guys? You can't tell _them_ to also leave humans alone?" The Slime squished itself into a puddle.

"No... I can't tell them what to do. S-so... do we have a deal? No more dead Slimes?"

"Sure! That works out for both of us!" Lloyd said. The Slime then bounced up and down in glee.

"Great! I'll go tell the other Slimes!" It said before disappearing out of existence before everyone's eyes. As soon as that happened, the other demons returned to their original positions.

"You can negotiate with the demons... that changes _everything._ " Carl said, almost in awe at what had just taken place. He was about to attempt to contact the fairy creature his Persona told him was called a Pixie before Yolanda clenched her fists together and called out her Persona's name.

"Kabandha!" Wind blew from underneath her and the blue-white ring of light expanded from her as her other self came into being, a strange pink creature that resembled a hippo and a fish crossed with each other with a plume of red hair erupting from its head.

"Aqua!" Yolanda shouted. Kabandha acknowledged the order and shot a jet of water at the Pixie, sending it flying backwards and fading out of existence before it hit the ground.

"Hey! What was that for? We could have negotiated with that demon!" Carl said, looking over at Yolanda. The purple ghost took the opportunity Carl gave it when he turned his head away and jumped at him, scratching him. He instinctively jumped backwards and cursed himself for letting his guard down. He looked down at the wound and saw that it was akin to what a cat would've done to him - he wasn't bleeding, but it sure stung regardless.

"Byakko, come." Marvin said, trying to focus on bringing out the power within him. A white tiger leapt into existence and clawed at the ghost Marvin now recognized as a Preta. Unfortunately, the Preta was able to sidestep the attack, making Byakko turn its head in surprise before disappearing.

"Sorry." Marvin said. Carl pointed at the Preta and said,

"You there! Preta! Come here, let's talk!" He stepped forward from the rest of the group, approaching the purple ghost.

"Whatcha want? Humans just think they can do whatever they want, don't they?" The Preta said to him. Carl considered his options - if Lloyd could make a deal with the Slimes to get them to avoid humans entirely, surely he could convince this Preta to do the same!

"Hardly. We have plenty of rules that keep us from doing _whatever we want."_ The Preta jumped up and down in fury, giving off a faint red aura that the Persona-users could see.

"Oh yeah? Well maybe you should make a rule that says to keep to yourselves!" Carl frowned at the demon's reaction. How was he going to defuse the situation? Something told him that he wouldn't be able to reason with demons the same way he could with humans, and so he thought of something completely different to do instead of just talking.

"Come, now. What do you say we de-stress with some stretches? A healthy body is the key to a healthy mind," Carl said, beginning to do the stretching routine he always did when preparing to run. The Preta was bewildered by this, and stamped its foot on the ground in annoyance.

"Do I look like I care about my body? I'm a ghost!" The red aura became brighter, and Carl sighed as he looked back at the others who were watching his negotiation fail spectacularly. Lloyd watched with anticipation, Yolanda was rolling her eyes, Jennifer was trying not to laugh, and Marvin seemed to be taking notes in his head as to what _not_ to do. He turned his attention back to the ghost and remembered that the Slime had offered Lloyd a truce only after being threatened.

"Okay, enough! If you don't do as I say, you're going to know what it feels like to die _again!_ " He shouted at the Preta, taking a step forward and clenching his fists. The Preta's red aura was now flashing red, and it reared back into a fighting stance.

"Oh yeah? Well, screw you! You're the one that's going to die instead!" It immediately leapt at Carl, but he managed to dodge the attack. The others got closer to him, and Lloyd said,

"I don't think it's gonna listen to you anymore! You're gonna have to fight!"

"Alright. I suppose I have no other choice... Persona! Berith, come to my aid!" Carl called out to his other self, which manifested as a knight in blue armor riding a horse. He pointed at the Preta and ordered Berith to use Gry. Berith twirled his lance, sending a wave of purple energy at the demon and flattening it into a pancake before it disappeared from the world. Immediately afterwards, he felt both himself and Berith gain a little bit of power, which his Persona explained as coming from the enemies they had just fought.

"So, in order to get stronger, we _have to_ fight..." Carl said aloud. He began to move forward again with the rest of the group.

"Cu Chulainn told me that we don't get any stronger from negotiating with our enemies. In order for us to toughen up, we have to defeat them in battle. He also said that demons aren't very good at recognizing individual humans, so that contract I made with the Slime will be broken the moment any human on campus kills another Slime. There was also something about recruiting them to our side - apparently if you can convince them they'll be better off fighting as a Persona, they'll give you their card." Lloyd explained, trying to remember all the things his other self had told him without actually saying any words.

"Yes, that's exactly what my Persona told me as well. There's a lot of different kinds of demons, and they all react differently to how we treat them. If we want to survive, we should learn about them as much as we can." Jennifer said. She hadn't needed to fight in that last battle, but thought that the rest of the group did very well for their first fight.

"You all can handle the talking. I'm perfectly fine with beating the crap out of every demon we come across." Yolanda tried to straighten her hair out, wishing she had a brush that wasn't already filled with other people's hair.

"At least we no longer have to worry about attacks from Slimes. I think the more non-aggression contracts we can form, the safer everyone will be." Marvin added to the conversation.

The group managed to make it over to the other five dorms without being attacked again, and the police officers on that side helped them organize the people that intended to go to the dining hall. For the rest of the hour, they guided people from all five secondary dorms to the dining hall while fighting off or negotiating with any demons that got in their way. While they were eventually able to get a Pixie to give Lloyd her Persona card, none of the group was ever able to figure out how to get the Preta to at least leave humans alone, much less give them a Persona card or something else of use.

 _\- 9:03 AM -_

"Okay, that appears to be everyone. Good work!" The police officer in front of Ellis Hall congratulated the Persona-users.

"Can _we_ eat now?" Yolanda asked.

"Yeah, I'm starving!" Lloyd added.

"Yes, of course. We'll be sure to keep people from leaving for at least an hour, that way you all will have time to eat." The police officer assured them. The group then headed for the dining hall, at least until Marvin saw the large crowds inside and decided to go back to his room, saying that he still had some food of his own he'd rather eat. Lloyd admitted that he hadn't gotten any new food in a while, and so was stuck eating whatever the dining hall had to offer.

"Man, I hope they don't run out of food or anything. That would scare me more than the demons would."

* * *

 **Original upload date: November 12, 2016**

 **A/N: Just as a heads up, because of the large variety of differences in demons/Personas from game to game in the series, you're probably going to see attributes or behaviors that may not precisely align with what you see in a particular Persona game. While this is based primarily off of Persona 1 in terms of mechanics, the details will be simplified to keep the story flowing at a reasonable pace.**


	4. The 1st Day (9:30 AM - 11:30 AM)

_\- Tuesday -_

 _\- 9:45 AM -_

Lloyd had managed to meet up with his sister, his roommate, and Yolanda while eating in the dining hall. According to the word spreading around, there had just been a shipment of food yesterday afternoon, which means they weren't likely to run out of food in the next couple of days. The bottled drinks, however, would likely all be gone very soon due to how scarce they got when faced with hundreds of people that had very few places to go. The plumbing functioned perfectly well despite the presence of the veil, which brought up the question of why no one had tried digging underneath it last night before the demons appeared.

"If it was that easy to get around the stupid thing, someone would've done it already. I bet people on the outside have already tried a number of ways to get through the veil, too. Face it, we're stuck here for who knows how long." Omar said, sighing as he looked up at the TV. The university channel had been playing the same few minutes over and over on a loop, exhorting people to remain inside due to the threat of demons all around campus. It had quickly gotten annoying after it began around two hours ago, and whoever had the remote control for the TVs in the dining hall at least had the sense to mute it and turn just about all the other TVs to the only other available channel, the weather channel.

"Still don't know why the _weather channel_ is the only thing we can watch. Oh, look. It's going to be eighty degrees out and partly cloudy today. Because I couldn't tell just by going outside that it was going to feel like fall." Yolanda remarked, watching as the coverage shifted to a look at the tropics.

"So, it looks like we have Tropical Depression Eight forming just north of the Caribbean here. Currently its path looks to stay just off the northern coast of Puerto Rico, and we'll be keeping an eye on this one as it continues to develop." The weatherman said, gesturing to a red letter L on the map of the ocean.

"There has to be a reason for it. I doubt whoever is doing this just forgot a channel. I think they want us to watch the hurricane forecasts." Astrid said as the weather coverage shifted to something else. As a different person came on to talk about the five-day outlook for various regions of the U.S., the TV began to flicker.

"Well, so much for that." Omar said. He looked around and saw that all the TVs in the dining hall were flickering, like they were about to lose their signal - even the ones that had been playing the university channel's looped broadcast. The murmurs of the people began to get louder right before all the feeds abruptly cut to a middle-aged man wearing a pair of thin-rimmed brown glasses and holding a lit cigar in his hand.

 **"Hello, everyone! To those who are not already familiar with me, allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Robert Freeman, and I am the one responsible for the situation you now find yourselves in."** His voice was heard loud and crystal clear despite the TVs being several feet away from most people, almost as if he was right next to everybody. He took a puff from the cigar and continued speaking.

 **"It has always been my belief that no one is truly capable of staring into the depths of their own soul without being crushed by the weight of the truth they find within. To that end, I have changed several of the buildings here into places where you may see for yourself exactly what kind of person you really are. Indeed, you will not be able to leave this place until you have visited and sufficiently overcome each trial set before you! You must face the demons both within and without you, a task that will certainly prove to you the folly of believing in mankind!"** Lloyd expected him to break out in an evil laugh, but Dr. Freeman's visage instead gave way to a map of the campus, with several buildings marked with what looked like red pen.

 **"I will even help you, just a little: here are all the locations you will need to venture into. I look forward to seeing you all struggle in futility to accept the truths of who you really are!"** The broadcast seemed to pause, with the image of the map remaining still on the screen for a few seconds before it looped from the beginning, with Dr. Freeman greeting everyone again. Unlike before, his voice no longer spoke directly to everyone, and came from the TVs as normal. Whoever was in charge of the remotes in the dining hall switched a few of them back to the weather channel, leaving a few of them to loop Dr. Freeman's broadcast, albeit muted.

The noise level rose considerably as everybody began to talk about what had just happened. Omar groaned.

"You have got to be _kidding me!_ We have to fight our way out, basically? We're never getting out of here..." He placed his head on the table, sighing loudly. Lloyd looked over at Yolanda - as one of the only other Persona-users right now, he wondered if it really would be up to them to save everybody.

"Shut your stupid face, Omar. I don't care what I have to do! If I have to climb a mountain of demon corpses to get out of here, that's exactly what I'm going to do!" Yolanda said, getting out of her seat. Omar looked up at her, sneering.

"Yeah, you have one of those Personas or whatever. You can actually fight back. What are the rest of us supposed to do, huh? Oh, forget it. I'm just wasting my time. I'm going to go back to the dorm. Someone else will take care of it." Omar got up from the table and began to make for the exit. The clock was a few minutes shy of 10:00 AM, about the time the Persona-users were supposed to go and escort people back to where they originally were stationed.

Lloyd rose and looked around for the others, catching sight of Carl, Jennifer, and Marvin before something glimmered at the edge of his sight. He looked up to one of the windows near the ceiling of the dining hall and saw that a golden, glittering butterfly had taken flight after resting on the window. No one seemed to notice the butterfly until it flew down in the center of the hall, drawing people's attention. Lloyd felt drawn to it, feeling that it was familiar to him. He saw the other Persona-users coming out of the crowd to approach the butterfly, and as soon as he was close enough to reach out and touch it, the world around him went black.

 _\- 10:00 AM -_

Lloyd felt himself floating in the void again, and saw Philemon's little shrine in the darkness. He floated over to it and stepped onto the checkered tile, seeing that Philemon was already standing in the center. His outfit was still as brilliantly colorful as before, a stark contrast to the lack of autumn colors to be found on the trees of Corpus Christi.

"Hello once again. It is good to see you have utilized the power I have bestowed upon you. Have you found it useful?" He asked. Lloyd smiled, bringing forth Cu Chulainn's card as he stretched his arm out. He flinched, not actually expecting to have called on his Persona with that gesture, but his smile turned into a grin as he realized how cool it was.

"Oh, yeah! It's awesome!" He said, taking hold of his Persona card and flipping it over with his fingers. Philemon nodded in approval, and materialized around himself a spinning ring of twenty-two Persona cards, all of them with the same golden back. Lloyd could see glimpses of different Personas depicted on the cards, along with a number at the top of each one.

"The situation you are in now is quite a unique one. I am aware of the need for there to be more Persona-users than the eleven of you I originally selected, and I am prepared to remedy this issue. However, since I cannot directly interact with the conscious realm, I will require your aid in order to successfully add more Persona-users to your ranks."

"Okay. What do you need us to do?" Lloyd asked. The ring of cards coalesced into a deck that Philemon took hold of in his right hand.

"Five hours from the time you will wake, I will be able to bestow the power of Persona to everyone who is within the confines of the area you know as Dolphin Plaza. What happened to you will also happen to them, and it will be your duty to guard them until they awaken." Philemon said.

"Dolphin Plaza, huh... alright. So, it was almost ten o'clock, and five hours from that is... 3 PM. Okay. Gather as many people as we can in Dolphin Plaza right around three, got it." Lloyd said, imagining a clock next to Philemon to help him calculate the time difference.

"There is one more thing you should know. You will find one of my servants occupying the unused room in Beatrice Hall. He will be able to call on the Personas contained within the cards you have obtained, allowing you to bring them forth. Please give him my regards." Lloyd could feel himself receding from Philemon back into the darkness of the void.

"We shall speak again soon. Good luck."

 _\- 10:02 AM -_

Lloyd opened his eyes again and found himself standing exactly where he was before, alongside the other Persona-users. The crowd reacted as if something incredible had just happened, and Lloyd saw his sister coming up and saying,

"Where did you go? Just a couple of minutes ago you and the others were standing there, then this butterfly passes by and you're all gone!" As the noise began to build up further, Carl stepped onto the top of the nearest table and shouted over everyone, quieting them down and getting their attention.

"Everyone! Allow me to explain what just happened. We have met with Philemon, the man responsible for our powers of Persona. He explained to us how we can give all of you the same power: at 3:00 PM today, in Dolphin Plaza, everyone who is present will be given the same power that we have. The other Persona-users and I will be there to make sure you all are safe! Now, you all should go back to wherever you came from and tell the others about this! The more people we have that can fight back, the faster we'll be able to figure out how to get out of here!"

As he was getting off of the table, people began to ask him a ton of questions, none of which he could really answer due to them all talking over one another. While he was busy fending them off, the rest of the people in the dining hall began to leave, prompting the Persona-users to split up into their groups once again. Lloyd's group met at their usual spot, with Carl sighing from all the attention and questions that he could and could not answer. The police officer that stood watch near the edge of the safety zone made sure the people were ready to go, and after half an hour everyone that wanted to return to the dorms was safe in their respective buildings.

 _\- 10:35 AM -_

"So Dolphin Plaza's pretty large, but I don't know exactly how many people are going to show up. If five of us could guard around fifty or so people without too much trouble, I imagine all eleven of us could handle... about one hundred and twenty? We might have to impose a limit as to how many people we allow to come with us, just for their safety." Carl said, speaking to the rest of the group, which was comprised of the four Persona-users and Astrid. The other six Persona-users had been split up into smaller groups, as the buildings they were escorting people to and from were farther apart and had less occupants. The police officer they had been working with before - who they had learned was named Winston - stood beside them, listening to their plans.

"We need to go and see what kind of condition the plaza is in. We haven't been able to really explore the campus just yet. There could be much stronger demons the further away you go from the safe zones." Jennifer said, tightening her ponytail. Marvin spoke up from beside her.

"Yes. There is also the matter of the altered buildings all around campus. The way Dr. Freeman worded it, he made it sound like they were... dungeons." He hesitated on the last word, unsure exactly how to put it. They were certainly full of demons, and Dr. Freeman had stressed the importance of needing to clear them all in order to escape, so... it sounded like an appropriate name to call them, at least to him.

"Dungeons, huh? Just like in those games I've been playing." Lloyd remarked. Yolanda crossed her arms and said,

"Except this isn't a game. People have already died here! And as much as we'd like to think everyone else is going to survive, I guarantee you that more people are going to die before this is all over. We can't save everyone, even the ones that are directly under our protection, so-"

"So we should make sure we do everything in our power to ensure as many people make it through as possible." Carl interrupted her, his tone icy and sharp. Yolanda raised a finger as if she was about to rebuke him, but then shook her head and turned away.

"You're right." She spoke, unwilling to push the issue any further.

"While we're on the topic of casualties..." Winston interjected as his radio buzzed with some conversation from other police officers.

"...us officers would very much like to be able to collect the bodies of those who have already perished, but the demons are preventing us from doing so. As you travel around campus, please let one of us know about any fallen individuals you come across. Once we have more Persona-users on our fighting force, we'll ask some of them to accompany us as we retrieve and identify the bodies. I'm sure some of us officers will also be part of the Dolphin Plaza event, so we can actually fight back alongside you kids." The group agreed to carry out his request. They then laid out a plan to go to Dolphin Plaza and clear a safe path to and from the area, with another police officer coming along to help figure out the logistics.

"We'll let everyone know about the plan and start organizing based on the information you provide."

 _\- 11:15 AM -_

While the group of Persona-users had left for Dolphin Plaza to survey the area, Astrid had been left behind in the primary dorm area. She had watched her brother go off with the other members of his group and knew that were it not for her urging him to go to that study group, he wouldn't have received the power of Persona and would probably be running around the dorms wishing he could be out there fighting demons. She wished she would have found a reason to also go, even though she had taken that course a long, long time ago and had been too busy with her other classes to play the role of peer instructor like Carl had. She knew she would be going to the 3 PM gathering later, so she figured it wouldn't be too much longer until she could also join in the effort to explore the buildings Dr. Freeman had changed and figure out a way to escape the veil.

She had met up with most of the roommates from the rest of Lloyd's group that hadn't gotten a Persona. She tried to remember their names - Jordan and Mai were rooming with Marvin and Jennifer, respectively... and then there were the people from Carl's room: Jack, Rae, and Hank. Omar had decided to hole himself up in his room and Mai had said there was another girl that was staying in her room, Delilah, but after splitting from Jennifer early this morning, she hadn't been seen since. Jordan was actually one of Dr. Freeman's students, so he had told the group about how the professor had been acting strangely the other day and after hearing his broadcast was convinced he had gone insane and was essentially treating everyone like rats in a laboratory.

"There are six buildings on campus that Dr. Freeman pointed out to us," Mai said, unfolding a map of the campus with the aforementioned buildings circled in red pen. The others gathered around the map, and Jordan pointed out that the humanities building, the one where the psychology and philosophy classes were held, was the closest one to their current position.

"I'm gonna guess that wherever Dr. Crazy is, it's not gonna be in there. Yeah, as soon as I get myself a Persona, I'm going to find him and give him a piece of my mind." Jordan said, laying back in his chair.

"I have a feeling he's not going to just let anyone waltz in and thwack him," Jack remarked. Jordan sat up as Jack continued talking.

"No, I'm pretty sure wherever he's hiding out, he's not going to be accessible until somebody returns all these buildings back to the way they were. There's probably a list of clues we have to find, and there's only one clue in each building, so whoever puts all six of them together will figure out how to get to him. Uh, but that's just my take on it. Could be completely different." Jordan shrugged.

"Whatever it takes, I'm gonna make it happen. There are hundreds of us still here on campus! There's no way hundreds of Persona-users are going to lose. Sure, not everyone is going to want to fight, but just being able to come and go whenever we want is gonna make a huge difference." The others agreed with him.

Astrid looked at the map that Mai had laid out on the table. She had been on campus that night because she was studying in the library for one of her classes, and was just about to leave when the veil was placed over the university. If she hadn't decided to study that night, or if she had decided to do her studying at her off-campus residence, she would have been on the outside of the veil right now, worried sick about what was happening to Lloyd. In a way, this was the better outcome, at least to her. There might have been demons running around killing people, putting her own life at risk as well as her brother's, but at least she was there to do something about it. Later on today, she and many others would go to Dolphin Plaza to receive that same strength that allowed Lloyd and the others to fight back, and then the people trapped underneath the veil could begin in earnest to overcome Dr. Freeman's trials and escape his mad experiment.

* * *

 **Original upload date: November 15, 2016**

 **A/N: In case you were wondering, the school that this story takes place in is based off of a real university, Texas A &M University-Corpus Christi. Why didn't I just use that, you ask? Well, I have a thing about avoiding the use of trademarked names in my fan fictions. It's not necessarily because I'm worried about copyright issues, but because having a stand-in allows me to change things about the object or setting it's based on in order to tailor it to the story. I also like coming up with new names for familiar trademarks.**


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